The Lion of Farside by John Dalmas

“On the ylver? Idri’s the one who stole Varia from me. If she was here, I’d show you vengeance.”

Liiset had no doubt he meant it. Sweet innocent Curtis has changed, she told herself. Idri’s impulsiveness at work. Well, no doubt it’s for the best. Sarkia seems pleased, and she doesn’t make many mistakes. Though if she could see him now . . . “I appreciate your feelings,” Liiset said, “but you’d have a hard time killing her if she were here. She has considerable powers.”

“Bullshit. If she was here, she’d be fly bait. I guarantee it.” He paused. “What’s this Kincaid to me?”

“There is much you don’t know yet. Much you couldn’t know.” She put her hand on the tomttu’s shoulder. “Curtis,” she said, “this is Elsir. Elsir, tell Commander Macurdy what you know of my sister.”

The tomttu didn’t read auras; he simply saw them and got an overall impression, discerning little of their detail. This man it seemed to him, was dangerous. “My lord, she knocked at my door in the forest, limpin’, and with a pack on her back. It was the start of dusk, and I’d just built a fire in my fireplace. I’d have asked her in, but she’d have had to squeeze through the door on hands and knees, and couldn’t have been comfortable inside anyway.

“So I asked what I could do for her, and she told me she’d run away from her Sisters, hopin’ to reach a gate and go back to her Curtis. To you. She asked if I knew of any dangers ahead, and if I could spare her somethin’ to eat.

“I told her I knew of no dangers that she didn’t; there always bein’ dangers in the wilderness. And that I’d be glad to spare her a loaf, and a small mess of greens. Not enough for a tallfolk, but all I had.”

He shrugged his small shoulders. “She lay down to rest on the grass then, and I’d just come back out with the loaf—when there they were, a dozen ylvin devils trottin’ up the path! Soldiers on a spyin’ mission, I have no doubt. Had they been ordinary humans, they’d never have seen my hut, nor your Varia lyin’ by it, for I’d protected it with a spell. She’d fallen asleep, and when I opened my mouth, their leader broke my spell with a wave of his hand, the same leavin’ me paralyzed and without speech. It wasn’t till one of them raised her by the hair that she wakened.”

He feigned a shudder. “They questioned her, strikin’ her repeatedly, and—did other things to her. And when they were done, all of them, they tied her weepin’ and bleedin’ across one of their horses, and rode away laughin’. But before they left, I heard the others call their leader Cyncaidh.”

Macurdy’s tight lips writhed, and Elsir thought his small heart would stop. “Myself they left where I lay,” he went on, “and I don’t mind tellin’ you I was frightened half to death. Any fox that came along, let alone wolf or catamount, could have had me for supper! But about midnight the paralysis wore off, and I managed to crawl inside and bolt my door.

“The next day, another Sister came along, on horseback with a guardsman, and I told them what I’d seen.”

Liiset spoke then. “That was Berit, another of our clone. She’d been tracking Varia, and turned back at once. Then Sarkia sent a master of concealment and tracking to follow the ylver’s trail, north to the Big River and beyond. He followed them through the Marches and into the empire itself. And far to the north, to Cyncaidh’s palace by the Northern Sea.

“He took his life in his hands then, and allowed himself to be seen. After weaving a spell to resemble an ylf, a spell adequate to fool the common ylver. If one of the more powerful had seen him though . . .

“He’d ask one of them an innocent question or two, then ask someone else a question based on what he’d learned from the first. Repeating this a few times, he learned how she’d fared: Cyncaidh had made Varia his slave and concubine, holding her up to public mockery.”